Toward a thorough understanding of the molecular machinery of life and its application

We are promoting both basic and applied research, mainly focusing on the following projects:

1. Control mechanisms of genome expressionMy laboratory seeks to fully understand the process of epigenetic regulation, transcription initiation, elongation, and termination, and RNA processing, which are all necessary to make functional RNAs from the genomes. Whereas cells composing our body have the same set of genes, they exert diverse functions. This is made possible by the elaborate cellular machinery that controls spatiotemporal expression of the genomes. We have identified and characterized a set of protein factors involved in the process.

2. Chemical biology using small-molecule compounds Small-molecule compounds are useful tools when studying complex biological systems. Understanding how a certain compound affects biological systems leads to the elucidation of unknown biological networks in which its target protein is involved. Moreover, these findings could also be applied to drug discovery. Chemical biology is an interdisciplinary subject investigating these issues, and we are conducting research, in part, through the identification of drug targets using proprietary affinity nanoparticles.